Astronauta, El
Entry updated 17 March 2025. Tagged: Film.
["The Astronaut"] Spanish film (1970). C B Films SA. Directed by Javier Aguirre. Written by Pedro Masó and Antonio Vich. Cast includes Paquito Cano, Antonio Ferrandis, Tony Leblanc, José Sazatornil, José Luis López Vasquez and Puri Villa. 86 minutes. Colour.
After opening with images of actual Space Flights and a sequence showing Pepe Fernández (Leblanc) cavorting in a spacesuit on Earth, this praised comedy begins in the town of Manglanillas with Fernández and his friends in a bar watching the Apollo 11 Moon landing. They improbably decide to launch their own Moon mission, with Fernández as its astronaut. They gain access to land owned by Don Gregorio Minglanillas (Ferrandis); they establish their own version of NASA, SANA (Sociedad Anónima de Naves Aeroespaciales); and they obtain the services of a space Scientist, Don Anselmo (Vasquez), who once worked with Wernher von Braun and Sergei Korolev. After some complications, they amazingly manage to actually launch Fernández in their Spaceship; but instead of reaching the Moon he lands back on Earth, as he discovers when he encounters actors in a Western being filmed and is chased by a rampaging bull (recalling the conclusion of Man in the Moon [1960]).
The film addresses the question also raised in the more poignant The Reluctant Astronaut (1967): why should ordinary people not be allowed to travel into space, instead of reserving the experience for trained professionals? While he engages in some buffoonery, Fernández seems to take his responsibilities seriously, and he is not the reason that his mission fails to achieve its goal. In their own way, these films anticipate NASA's later approach of launching everyday citizens like teachers and journalists into orbit and, of course, the more recent efforts of private space companies to offer space flights to millionaires and celebrities. [GW]
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